How to Be the Spookiest House in Your Neighborhood

In keeping with Halloween tradition, homeowners everywhere decorate their yards and their homes with creepy, spooky and all together ooky decorations to celebrate this ancient holiday. If cute and classic isn't your thing, it's just as easy to go with scary and strange with these DIY halloween decorations.

Floating Head Ghosts

These super easy ghosts can be made with just a few supplies from your local craft store. At just a few dollars a pop, these will definitely deliver the biggest bang for your buck. Start with a foam head (these can be bought off Amazon or at a craft store), top it off with cheesecloth and Mod Podge, use fishing line to hang it up, and you're done. These look best in groups of 3 or 4. This tutorial by Simply Designing is very easy to follow.

Door Wreath

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While this website has several examples of great Halloween wreaths, one of the simplest is this picture frame project. Using an old picture frame, a plastic skull, silk and paper flowers, and the black drapery available at any dollar store during the Halloween season, you can have a unique and creepy wreath for your door this year.

Garage Door Silhouette

This project will require some knowledge of woodworking, as you'll need to use a Dremel tool to cut out your shape. The best news is that this decoration will last years since it's so sturdy. The tutorial by Instructables gives a detailed guide on how to create this giant silhouette. It's made of plywood, painted black, and back-lighted by rope lights. While the initial work is more complicated than the other DIYs in this blog, setup is very easy.

Spider Victim

If you've got trash bags, a white sheet, and a nearby dollar store, this project will be easy peasy. Fill the trash bags with wads of grocery bags (or anything else lightweight that can be manipulated into a body-like shape) and use packing tape to define the head, waist, and ankles. Cover with the sheet and tighten to reinforce the shape. Hang up your victim where you'd like him, and then drape store bought spider webs everywhere. Connect some of the webs to the roof of your porch (or wherever you're hanging it) to make it look as if the victim is well and truly trapped.

Hanging Candles

Using a mix of toilet paper rolls and paper towel rolls, this cheap DIY project brings a whole lot of atmosphere to the room. Coat the empty rolls in a this layer of white paint, use a glue gun to draw on realistic drips, and secure in a tea light. These are easily hung from a ceiling with fishing line.

Yard Ghosts

With only three components, this is by far the easiest of the DIY projects in this article. You need round styrofoam balls, stakes/dowels, and white sheets. One each for each ghost. Top the stakes with one of the styrofoam balls, glue the center of the sheet onto the "head", and tie the corners of the sheets to it's neighbor to create the illusion of linked hands. If you don't have white sheets on hand, black or grey ones work just as well!

Skeletons Having Fun

Add a little spooky whimsy with plastic skeletons in your yard. Decoration Love has several ideas on their website, but it's okay to think outside the box! Whether you have skeletons scaling the side of your house, competing in a beer pong game, or just relaxing in the sun, you can't go wrong. These can be bought in bulk on Amazon, but are also available at your local dollar store or Target.